Ian Chappell: David Warner 'would have been a better captain than Steve Smith'

Australian Test legend Ian Chappell has sensationally claimed David Warner has better captaincy credentials than his former boss Steve Smith, showing a fondness to the former vice-captain's insight of the game.

The 75-year-old's shock take comes a fortnight after he leapt to the defence of Warner over the ball-tampering scandal, questioning why the ex-deputy was viewed more harshly.

In the court of public opinion, Warner has been the main scapegoat, while Smith is seen in a fairer light.

"If anything Smith was more guilty than Warner," Chappell wrote in The Daily Telegraph.

"He was the captain and by saying 'I don't want to know' when he was confronted by the sight of sandpaper in the dressing room he was guilty of totally abrogating his duty."

Chappell is standing in Warner's corner again, arguing the much-maligned batsman could have outdone Smith as Australian captain.

"There's a lot of people who make statements who don't know sh** about cricket, so I don't take any notice of them," Chappell said in a sit-down interview with Geoff Lemon and Adam Collins on The Follow On.

"Anybody who says Warner's too difficult - now I'm not in the dressing room, so I don't know - but the bit I've had to do with David Warner, I think he would have been a better captain than Steve Smith because he's got a very good understanding of the game of cricket, it's a very aggressive understanding of the game of cricket.

"I've spoken to him about batting, batting in general and his own batting, and he's got a terrific understanding of batting. He did a bit of commentary with Channel 9 and I had a chance to talk to him off-air. He had a terrific understanding of the game."

Chappell suggested Smith was ''bouyed'' by the captaincy, pointing to his rise in form with the bat late in 2015, and compared his captaincy to a list of Australian legends.

''Michael Clarke and Mark Taylor were guys who were buoyed by the responsibility (and not weighed down)," he said.

"The only disappointment I had in Ponting's captaincy was ... his nickname is 'Punter' and he didn't take his gambling instinct onto the field with him," he said. "I wish he had of.

"But I always had Ricky ahead of Steve Waugh as a captain because whether you agreed with his ideas or not, he never ran out of ideas.

"But I saw Steve run out. On the odd occasion he was under the hammer, he ran out of ideas pretty quickly."